The Pledge |  | Director: Sean Penn
Actors: Jack Nicholson, Benicio Del Toro, Patricia Clarkson, Beau Daniels, Dale Dickey
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.98
Buy Used: $0.96
as of 3/21/2010 22:42 EDT details
You Save: $9.02 (90%)
New (45) Used (112) Collectible (2) from $0.96
Seller: ZoverstocksUSA
Rating:  189 reviews
Sales Rank: 13057
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 124 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.2 x 0.5
MPN: WARD19053D
ISBN: 0790758067
UPC: 085391905325
EAN: 9780790758060
ASIN: B00005BCKG
Theatrical Release Date: January 19, 2001
Release Date: June 19, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
THE SUSPECT CONFESSED TO THE MURDER, THEN TOOK HIS OWN LIFE.CASE CLOSED? NOT FOR HOMICIDE COP JERRY BLACK. HE HAS HIS OWN INSTINCTS ABOUT THE CRIME. AND EVEN THOUGH HE'S READY TO BEGINA GONE-FISHIN' RETIREMENT, HE PROMISED THE VICTIM'S FAMILY HE'D FIND THE KILLER.
Amazon.com
Jack Nicholson is detective Jerry Black, a respected and well-liked veteran of the Reno police force retiring to a life of angling with more than a little apprehension. Thus he jumps into a murder case, the slaying of a little girl, a mere six hours from retirement and makes a promise to the grieving mother to catch the killer. As his partner (an effectively abrasive Aaron Eckhart) squeezes a confession out of the severely mentally handicapped suspect (a thoroughly unsettling performance by Benicio Del Toro), Jerry is convinced that they've got the wrong man. As in Sean Penn's previous work, this is an actors' piece. Nicholson plays Jerry with restlessness under his easy-going, smiling calm; his patient fisherman's heart leaps at every nibble while he casts for a murder suspect. And Del Toro, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, and Mickey Rourke make striking impressions in their single-scene appearances. Penn is less concerned with the mystery than the emotional turmoil and Jerry's state of mind, interrupting moments of calm with jagged cuts and discomforting images (including some especially disturbing crime scene photos). Jerry's instincts and methods are sound and his sensitivity is real--he takes in a battered single mom (Robin Wright Penn) and her little girl, and develops a rewarding family life--but his passion for justice turns to unhealthy, destructive obsession. That's ultimately what we're left with at the conclusion of this often off-putting but ultimately fascinating film. The truth will not always set you free. --Sean Axmaker
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 189
 Penn makes good on The Pledge March 17, 2009
Montague Smith (Thailand)
On the day of his retirement, Reno homicide cop Jack Nicholson investigates the brutal small-town murder of an eight-year-old girl and promises the distraught mother that he will find the killer. Seen fleeing the scene, retarded Indian Benicio Del Toro is apprehended the next day and confesses before killing himself in custody. It doesn't sit right with Nicholson, who delves into similar crimes unsolved in Nevada. Finding a link with two other cases, Nicholson baits a trap for a killer who might still be out there waiting to prey on young victims. Friedrich Durrenmatt's story It Happened in Broad Daylight has been filmed before as The Cold Light of Day, a 1995 Dutch film starring Richard E. Grant and set anonymously in eastern Europe. Sean Penn places his version precisely in the harsh landscape of the American West, the small town's clapboard buildings puny and inadequate in the shadow of the snow-peaked Sierras. Durrenmatt's schematic crime drama thus becomes more metaphysical character study than psycho-thriller, and in Nicholson's admirably restrained performance the obsessive detective is a noble melancholy loner, fascinating and deeply flawed. Good intentions, it seems, are sometimes not enough and Nicholson's sad character loses the plot. Penn calls his version The Pledge, but it could as well have been called The Secret. Nicholson unwisely keeps his counsel and it has devastating consequences for him as well as the mother, daughter and suspect. The only ones he tells the truth are his former colleagues on the force, and they don't believe him. The casting throughout is canny: Penn not only makes shrewdly judged use of the saturnine Del Toro's feral features but also puts Tom Noonan in a pivotal role. The softly spoken, apparently benign Noonan, of course, carries the imprint of his creepy depiction of Tooth Fairy serial-killer Francis Dollarhyde in Manhunter, Michael Mann's masterful version of Red Dragon. In tone and bleak visual grandeur, Penn's picture resembles Paul Schrader's unforgiving film Affliction, and - as Nicholson rails in the wind against the random injustice of it all - it leaves a similarly haunting impression.
 Nicholson's Last Great Dramatic Role September 16, 2008
Shell-Zee (Long Island, NY)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
While The Pledge will never be included in anyone's list of favorite Jack Nicholson movies. It is none the less a finely crafted film, with great performances by Patricia Clarkson, Benicio Del Toro, Dale Dickey and of course Jack Nicholson. Kudos to Sean Penn for delivering this psychological thriller with such clearity and suspense. There's an erie undercurrent of mystery and intrigue throughout the movie that leaves one feeling unsettled right to the very end.
Having recently made several light comedies, (As Good As It Gets, About Schmidt and Somethings Gotta Give) all very good movies, Nicholson has had few dramatic roles of late that can compare with the great perfomances he gave us from Five Easy Pieces (1970) to A Few Good Men (1992). The Pledge (2001) is, in my opinion the last truly great dramatic performance he has done. While I'm certainly not writing him off, I sincerely hope Jack can find several more roles that challange his formitable skills at delivering rivoting and compelling dramatic performances. Until then The Pledge remains a latter day masterpiece by the single greatest actor of his generation.
 NICHOLSON DOES NOT DISAPPOINT! March 23, 2008
D. Ferguson (Brooklyn, NY United States)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Jack Nicholson is, to me, one of the best actors of this generation, and his acting in this movie was typical Nicholson. Powerful!
Although the movie was electric and spell binding, it left far too big a question at the end. This may work for some movies. For this one, it did not.
I did not like the ending.
Great movie, disappointing ending March 5, 2008
Quevic Springs (USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I just saw this movie for the first time today, never having heard of it before, but, as anything with Jack Nicholson is usually well worth watching, I gave it a shot. From the beginning, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen-it was a riveting, emotional-building roller coaster in that typically low-key Nicholson way, & I couldn't wait for the final "confrontation" with the killer. To say I was overly distraught at the ending would be an understatement. After proving that he was correct in his assumptions in the case, contrary to the intense reluctance & near-ridicule of his former police mates, Nicholson has the audience on the edge of our seats rooting for the proof of his redemption, as well as the gratitude of the mother he made the initial promise to, and the mother who's little girl he was in the process of saving, when lo & behold, the whole thing just sort of falls apart with an all-too-convenient & seemingly nonsensical fatal vehicular accident, causing everything to seem like a figment of Nicholson's mind, subsequently ruining his life & turning him into a babbling alcoholic. I, for one, would have loved (& expected to get) a closure-type ending-this movie screamed for one, but I guess that no one was listening.
 This was one of the worst movies I have ever had the misfortune of enduring. February 5, 2008
Mark Needham
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
The first half of the movie looks promising but I promise you you will regret watching the rest.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 189
|
|
|
